THE ANCIENT PHARISEES BECAME RABBINIC JUDAISM

Source: Wikipedia Encyclopedia

In contrast to other Jewish groups of the time, such as Sadducees, Pharisees held that the books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible also called the written law) have always been transmitted in parallel with an oral tradition. They pointed as proof to the text of the Torah itself where they said many words were left undefined and many procedures mentioned without explanation or instructions; the reader is assumed to be familiar with the details from other sources. This parallel set of material was originally transmitted orally and came to be known as "the oral law". By the year 200 A.D. much of this material was edited together into the Mishnah, the core document of rabbinic Judaism.